


To Pour Water From The Sea

by neptunedemon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ghosts, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Lighthouses, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 17:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12017949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neptunedemon/pseuds/neptunedemon
Summary: Who mans the lighthouse at the top of the cliff? Against the pale, rainy sky, who sets that light cutting through storm and fog? Yuuri Katsuki does - and he does so in pitiful hope that one day, his sailor husband shall return home.And Viktor does return: he comes in with the tide, speaks through the wind, touches with nightly chill, and kisses by morning frost.But Yuuri is alive, and this is no way for one to live. No matter the love that was sweet as the sea is salty.





	To Pour Water From The Sea

Phichit leaned across the table with his best astute eye alert and scrutinizing. Mr. Christophe Giacometti sat before him; he was their newest employee at the news office, and Phichit was asked to introduce to him the basics over a hot mug of cider to combat the chilly weather **.**

However, as conversation about work deluded into life, Phichit had just been asked to share an utmost personal secret – one that wasn’t truly his to give, but he was also somewhat at a loss to the whole situation anyway. A second opinion might be increasingly necessary. _Indeed_ , he thought. And Mr. Giacometti might be the one. For example, he wasn’t backing away from Phichit’s notoriously uncomfortable press on his personal space, or his intimidating (or so he thought) glare.

Chris’s eyes were level as he stared back, and it almost looked like he was raging a serious battle against cracking a smile.

“Is this some sort of test?”

A brief heat flushed across Phichit’s face. “Ah, no!” _He’d been discovered._ Time to cover. “I was just… thinking.”

Chris brought his elbows onto the table and clasped his hands together. He scooted closer in his chair, and the movement jarred his glasses into sliding a tad farther down his nose. He didn’t fix them, but peered at Phichit over the frames. A charming, seductive twitch of his lips to go with his eyes as he asked, “Then may I hear this tale?”

Phichit gulped. He tried one last, studious look on Chris, but his demeanor was unwavering.

It was decided then.

Phichit cleared his throat; Chris’s eyes brightened, but he remained composed.

“Tell me, Mr. Giacometti: do you believe in ghosts?”

There was pause.

This would have been an excellent moment for the view to pan off-screen, onto the story that was about to be told. Perhaps if there were some way to project such moving images, it would make an excellent sort of lively visual, like a painting in motion. If only those things were to exist.

As it was, Phichit had to hope his new buddy here would leave enough dramatic pause for the effect to hold.

Chris laughed, though. “My friend, you implied this tale was real!”

Phichit’s heart twirled. This would work too – situational irony at its finest. He said, “Ah, Sir. So you do not believe?” He gave a wickedly small grin, tilted his head.

Mr. Giacometti seemed to be fighting another outburst, but he suppressed it with pursed lips, shaking his head until he managed, “Why no, at this moment, I remain unconvinced.”

“Then tell me if at the end of this story, you feel the same.”

“Challenge accepted.”

Satisfied, heart pounding at the notion of getting to enchant the man in front of him, and to share his friend’s strange struggles against the unknown, he cleared his throat. He began: “This, as you know, is about my best friend. And this story continues unto this day, this very moment. And quite honestly, I’m getting scared.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tourists always claimed everything was so blue. But really, except for those few summertime days (which was when tourists usually visited anyway, he accepted), everything was gray.

Sure, there was the faintest bleed of blue into the spectrum. But mostly a pale, foggy gray covered the sea and sky. Hazy clouds were the usual year-round, and it never got too hot here – even on warm days, when the sun was hidden as it often was, one usually found himself shivering..

That, and then it’d be cold. Wintertime wrought the gray to its palest form, everything a boney hue of snow and dirt and cluttered sky. Sometimes it snowed scrawny flakes. Nothing ever dreamlike, with pure-white puffs illuminating rosy cheeks like Yuuri had read in storybooks and fairytales.

Yuuri tried to remember if it was always this way.

The sea roiled below him in its pool of murky gray, darker than the sky but not by much despite it being midday.

He stood at the top of a cliff; if he wanted, he could traverse down the craggy side of the mountain to the shore below. But Yuuri stayed at the top, the wind whipping its dull hues across his face, curling swift fingers through his dark hair.

And he mourned; with everything owning the dreariest façade most every day, it was easy to imagine the world cried with him, and that there would never be a reason for him to move anywhere. Moving anywhere meaning moving _on_ , which had been recommended to him by many.

Two sets of numbers sat in his head:

Eight months. Twenty-six days.

But also three months and twenty-six days.

The first set: when Yuuri’s husband, Viktor, had sailed out for an expedition to explore newly-discovered islands along the eastern seaboard.

The second set: how long ago Viktor and the crew were supposed to return.

It had been hard enough those five months without him, the person Yuuri loved most, and also Yuuri’s everything.

The sea had taken him. Wrenched up her arms from her bloated body, caressed the men’s ship in a hasty embrace, too reckless to fathom her own power – and she dragged them into her, within her, so deep that not even the sea herself would ever be able to retrieve the splintered remains of the ship, not to choke them back onto the surface or spit them onto the shore.

If perhaps the world could be turned upside down, the water poured out of the sea, Yuuri could bring Viktor back ashore. He’d see him just over there, on the horizon, right where one musty shade of gray met another.

The worst part was that Yuuri – and everyone in town – didn’t know for sure the ship had gone down. It could only be assumed. Now most people claimed it was accepted.

Yuuri refused to accept it.

There could be no Earth in which Viktor did not exist under its stars. It could not be had – not when the sea was right there, and Viktor and Yuuri could both touch it and suddenly be so close. Or when the moon finally drifted through wisps of nighttime clouds, Yuuri and Viktor could both lay eyes upon the same surface without knowing they shared that moment. And if the unknowing was there, then he couldn’t be gone. Not completely.

Yuuri tangled himself into these ideas with every heartstring, lodged them deep into his sinew and bones. There it thrived, hot and beating to combat the deathly kiss of the icy world. A gleam inside the glacier that encased his chest.

_He was not gone._

It did not stop the pain.

Yuuri longed for Viktor’s morning hugs that turned to afternoon embraces that became evening caresses. For sweet kisses and hand-holdings that pulled apart the clouds over the sea and let sun dance across glittering waves. And Viktor’s words of comfort, love – oh, how he lifted Yuuri up from any dreary stupor. And Yuuri could do the same for him, somehow, despite how insignificant he sometimes felt: Viktor had made him feel loved.

Because he had been.

(Was! _Is_.)

His heart trembled and his hands clenched; he drew a deep, ragged breath, and felt it scrape past everything broken inside of him, shards of those tangled beliefs and ideals and dreams and miseries, and he wanted to cry – to scream – at the sea to bring him back, as he so often did. So, so often.

The light grew visibly darker; a gust of salty sea-wind ripped past with enough power to force Yuuri a step back. He grimaced, shoved his glasses up his nose, tightened his coat around himself, and turned on the sea. If a storm were coming, he’d need to tend the light early tonight.

His eyes drew from his house to the large, round mast beside it; they followed it up, and up, until the form grew hazy and sparse above as it peeked misty clouds.

This was what Yuuri lived for: to keep that guiding light burning each night. Because one day, he would be guiding Viktor home.

 

~

 

Consciousness crept into his mind before his eyes opened. The bedroom was so swollen with the heavy scent of sea spray and rain that it was practically damp. Yuuri pulled the blankets around himself, burrowed deeper, unappreciative of the atmosphere that had leaked into the house during the night. This was often the way it was during fierce weather: water crashed against the roofs and walls, finding its way in through the smallest of cracks, and wind filled with briny air whipped the exterior and whistled its way inside.

Yuuri kept his eyes closed, remembering the few times he’d been disturbed during the night by loud blasts of thunder and blinding white flashes. The sea churned distantly as a blanket of constant clamor.

It was a treacherous existence.

The bed space next to Yuuri shifted some, the weight rolling in humanlike motions. At first, Yuuri smiled; his mind was now edging back toward sleep, and he thought of Viktor slumbering deeply next to him. Then his eyelids shot high with a start, and he bolted upright.

He was alone in the room, dull light streaming through window glass, not even bright enough to reflect across drifting dust.

And there was certainly no one in the spot next to Yuuri, no matter how hard he stared. He drew deeply upon a breath, willing his heart to slow. He’d been startled by his subconscious.

Suddenly done with sleep, Yuuri threw off the covers and tossed his legs over the bed until his feet found slippers. He rarely went barefoot in the house, for if the floor wasn’t cold, it seemed to always own the lightest dusting of sand. It was impossible to keep out.

In the kitchen, Yuuri began boiling a pot of water to make tea to fill his body with warmth. His pajamas were thin, and the stormy night was still lifting – he shivered slightly, and left the kitchen to tend to the fireplace in the other room. It would be a day of staying indoors, besides tending to the light.

When the flame sucked in strength, the air in the house shifted, pulling in oxygen for the greedy tongues of fire. Yuuri warmed himself before it, turning around several times to fully bathe in the heat.

Cool air pushed past him, grazing his neck, and something whispered:

 _Yuuri_.

A shiver breezed across his skin as his heart dropped to thud sickeningly at the bottom of his stomach; Yuuri whirled around to face the room. It was empty save for the solitary stack of firewood and sofa that faced the fireplace.

As the tea kettle shrilly cried out from the kitchen, Yuuri’s entire being was jarred by fright and he clutched a hand to his chest. But then he slapped his other hand to his forehead, shook his head, and composed himself.

His jumpiness of the morning was unusual. And his imagination was rampant. Still though, that whisper had carried the inflections and tone of someone familiar… Yuuri’s heart squeezed, warning him not to make himself miserable, and he went to tend to the whining kettle.

He took a mug from the cabinet, and from another, a tin of dried tea leaves. The heat of the oven helped keep him warm and buffered the ghostly chill hovering at his back. He prepared his tea in a silence only accompanied by the hiss of the burning gas in the stove and the occasional gust of wind curving around the house.

He set his tea to steep and looked up toward the window over the stove. This side of the house faced down the coast, and he had a view of the edge of town and the harbor. People were out working the docks through the bleak morning light; so distant, they were small, like tiny sand crabs scuttling between sand and waves. A group was unloading cargo from a recently docked ship.

Yuuri watched with plaintive interest as he waited for his tea; but the sight grew cloudy, and for a moment Yuuri thought a great fog was rolling down from the valleys farther north. But he blinked, and he realized the heat from the stove and steam from his mug was fogging the window.

He turned the oven off, knowing it was silly to save gas for the sake of warmth. His tea was about done steeping and he moved to finish preparing the drink, but a chill brushed over him and his skin prickled beneath his pajamas. By some ethereal force, he had the inclination to look out the window again; Yuuri lifted his eyes, but they didn’t pass through the glass.

With condensation dripping through the trace of letters, words had been written into the fogged window pane:

_Are You Ignoring Me_

His throat froze over with ice, and Yuuri stumbled backward, dragging the mug off the stovetop. For a frozen moment there was no sound, Yuuri’s breath lodged somewhere in the glacier inside him – and then the mug shattered, ceramic scattering across the floor. Hot liquid sloshed over his slippers, splattering his ankles like hot sea spray.

He stared at the words, lips parted, absolute horror coursing through him. With the absence of heat, the fog was fading fast, but the words were there. Yuuri focused on them, waiting for their edges to blur and then disappear, thinking he must be going mad.

But the water dripped down the pane. A droplet reached the sill – Yuuri’s eyes followed it: the drop pooled against the bottom. The words had been drawn from the inside of the room.

Yuuri turned fast, but he was alone.

“Hello?” he called anyway. It was in vain, because no one could have done this without him noticing.

The only response was the creek of the house as the wind pushed against it.

Someone knocked, and Yuuri startled. He tried to shake the fear off as he gathered his wits to answer the door, mind tumbling forth to recall any forgotten expectation for visitors.

Pointedly looking away from the window, he left the kitchen for the hallway and headed toward the front door.

The cool metallic touch of the doorknob reminded Yuuri of the pale morning beyond, and he looked down at himself with a grimace. He was still wearing his pajamas.

The morning had been eventful – and he could chalk his lack of aptitude up to that. But truly, he was used to living in solitude with few unexpected visitors. So he peered through the peephole to see who waited for him.

“Oh,” Yuuri whispered audibly. He swung the door open. Mr. Phichit Chalunont, Yuuri’s friend, stood by. He grinned wide and bright when he saw Yuuri; the very glow from his smile could combat the looming storminess of the day.

“Yuuri!” Phichit chimed like a singular sunbeam streaming down from the heavens.

Phichit was bound up in woven sweaters and scarves of autumn colors, deep oranges and burgundy and warm browns. He clutched a red notebook to his chest; its edges were worn with damp weather, but otherwise its wear and tear appeared to be of excessive use.

Phichit was a news columnist. And he was always verging on inventing the next greatest spiel for each week. Often he would visit Yuuri to ask his advice on stories.

“Hello, Phichit,” Yuuri greeted, attempting to mirror the warm smile. Yuuri felt the emptiness in his expression, weak and pitiful like tiny snowflakes. Phichit pursed his lips and his own smile was smothered some, which wasn’t what Yuuri meant for. He quickly barreled on: “What brings you here?”

“I simply haven’t seen you in ages,” Phichit was quick to explain. He bounced on his toes, leaning forward, and Yuuri thought he must mean to be invited in. But Phichit continued, “I thought I’d drop in. Say hi!” His eyes panned over Yuuri’s attire. “Though I hope I didn’t just wake you.”

“Oh no, no!” Yuuri defended, awash in the pale pinkness of embarrassment. “You haven’t. Why don’t you come inside? I’ve simply just made myself tea-“ he cut short, remembering. For a tormented second, he wondered how to backtrack on his invitation. Because there were circumstances that needed his attention, direly.

Plus, he didn’t want to worry his friend with the shattered cup on the ground. But Phichit was already prancing past, exclaiming his gratitude to be let in from the chill.

“You live so far from civilization, Yuuri! The journey here practically killed me.”

This was an exaggeration, and a small part of Yuuri wanted to declare it as so, but suddenly Phichit was heading toward the kitchen, and Yuuri protested, “I – Phichit, wait!”

He chased his friend down.

Phichit stood on the tiles staring down at the mess Yuuri had created moments ago. Panic-stricken, overwhelmed, Yuuri’s eyes flashed toward the window. The fog had faded; and with it, the strange message.

“Were you okay in here?” Phichit asked slowly as he turned to Yuuri.

“Yes, actually,” Yuuri said. He writhed mindlessly for a lie, and found one: “I was startled when I heard the door knock and dropped it. I live alone, you know, and am used to the quiet.”

Phichit nodded, his furrowed brows deepening their set. “Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Yuuri quietly set to cleaning the mess, but Phichit immediately joined. “At least let me help,” he reasoned. Yuuri couldn’t argue without giving away the truth, and so they worked together.

Ah, no wonder the sky is without the sun, Yuuri thought. For it is here next to me.

Phichit was unusually quiet as they cleaned. When Yuuri stole a glance in his direction, there was a downward turn at the corners of his mouth; his eyes were intense and focused on a faraway thought. It made Yuuri uneasy, as if Phichit might be seeing through him, assuming Yuuri was coming apart. Or realizing?

Yuuri hadn’t had a moment yet to think about the writing on the window, or the message, or anything. Maybe he was going crazy with loneliness. Whether he was or wasn’t – he didn’t want Phichit to figure it out before him.

He tried to think of something to say, a conversation to start as a distractor. But his thoughts were stuck in ice.

“Yuuri,” Phichit started, and Yuuri flinched. Phichit’s eyes flickered to him a moment. Then they looked back to the floor, to the shards of the mug they’d scraped together into a pile. “Are you –“

Here it was. Yuuri braced himself to deflect whatever accusation was implied in the coming question, whatever plea to Yuuri’s sanity it threatened to surface.

“- up for listening to my latest column idea?”

“What?” Yuuri blurted.

Phichit sat back to stare at him expectantly, lips pursed and eyes tentative but eager.

Yuuri caught up.

"Of course! Of course." Slightly manic, he looked about him for a cloth, and spotted one resting on a counter. He launched to his feet and grabbed it. His eyes fell upon the window pane only for a moment, just to see - but nothing was there.

He kneeled back to the floor from which Phichit still studied him, and began to sop the liquid up.

"Why don't you start now?" Yuuri piped.

His friend tilted his head at him, but his shoulders limped with the essence of a shrug, and the space grew warmer once again as Phichit divulged his writing.

The story went as Phichit’s often did - witty, clever, original, but as much as Yuuri wanted to treat his friend to his full attention, he couldn’t help the oddness in the air around them. It was sharp and crisp, like a new energy was present. And the house smelled like a lightning flash.

The thoughts were senseless, and Yuuri began to disregard them until Phichit, upon the ending of his tale, interjected with, “Do you have a window open, Yuuri? It feels like the storm swept in here last night.”

Yuuri forced a laugh. “Ah, probably in the bedroom.”

Phichit nodded with a quizzically slow patience that told Yuuri he’d done something odd. “Okay, wouldn’t you have noticed?”

He wanted to push Phichit out the door so his poor friend could be spared his confusions. But Yuuri couldn’t do that - and so he took a deep breath and tried for, “Phichit, I think perhaps I have yet to wake up. I had a restless night with the storm and all. I need to do some things, and perhaps I can see you later in the week?”

“Oh.” Phichit pulled his lower lip under his teeth and tugged it thoughtfully. He stared past Yuuri, toward the stove and the window pane. A gentle chill whispered against Yuuri’s skin at the thought of his back against those. He wanted to turn, to check that there was nothing there, perhaps something Phichit could not even see - but he was trying hard to preserve his dignity while Phichit still remained under his roof.

The wind outside gave a shrill howl. A gull cried.

“Okay, if you’re sure you want to be alone right now,” Phichit finally continued.

Yuuri sighed, relieved. “Yes, that’s - I promise that’s best right now.”

Phichit gathered his things to leave; his smile was weak, a frail beam now. Yuuri longed for its powerful shine.

“Thank you for sharing your story, by the way, Phichit,” he said. At the words, Phichit’s head canted upward, the glitter of hope sparking in his eyes. “I mean it. It made me… happy.”

In its way, it did - though Yuuri couldn’t recite it word-for-word, surely, he loved Phichit. And all that came with him, including his willingness to travel to this high, craggy clifftop to keep Yuuri company.

After… weeks had gone by and the town was beginning to accept the worst, Phichit had been there for Yuuri.

As he had been there when he had first stumbled into love with the sailor, and when he’d married him, he was there when he lost him.

(Not permanently lost, Yuuri reminded himself. Another chilled finger traveled down his spine.)

The tears that Yuuri had shed upon Phichit could combat the amount of saltwater a life of living by the sea contained.

The sun within Phichit exposed itself more; the house threatened to crack, its walls not used to such light anymore. Yuuri tried to mirror the smile once again, and though his own glacial cavities creaked in resistance, he managed, slightly. And perhaps a sheet of ice dislodged, plummeted, melted.

“You can always come see me, too,” Phichit said. Yuuri smiled and nodded the reassuring nod he was supposed to.

“I know. Thank you.”

Phichit left, the door shutting out the traces of light he left behind. Suddenly the house was quieter than night, and there was no more color. Yuuri blinked, and cold wet trails stung his cheeks.

He lifted a hand to them and realized he was crying, but he had no idea why.

He walked from the hall back to the kitchen. Peeled paint stared at him like dull eyes from the walls.

His stomach was a cave, dripping with cold waters that scoured it out, but he could not imagine eating despite his emptiness.

A gust swept over his shoulders and curved downward against his chest; for the first moment, he truly did think he left a window open, and that the wind had crept in and run toward him whilst his back was turned. But then the wind tickled his ear as it spoke, “You should eat, _Yuuuuri_.”

Yuuri cried out, loud and sharp; it cut through the thick silence of the house like a harpoon. He stumbled back, crashing into the kitchen table and scooting a chair roughly along the floor surface.

Then he froze. His hands gripped the wood of the table, splintery and rough and old as a slab of driftwood. His skin under his clothes stung with the imprint of icy fingers that he surely couldn’t have imagined.

The name was out before he could stop himself: “ _Viktor_?”

Yuuri’s hands shot to his cover his mouth; in shame, fear, or hope, he did not know. Could not even want to know. Tears brimmed his eyes anew, and these were hot and scorched along his cheeks as if he bled.

He tore from the room, from the house, pajamas still adorned but he cared not. The wind shot straight to him, through him and around him, taking him whole, claiming him while it could reach him when not guarded by the confines of those meek walls.

Yuuri felt the lighthouse peak watch him as he hurried down the path carved into the side of the cliff. He ignored its press against his back as if it knew he needed guiding.

He did not need guiding. He was not crazy. This was just… just… he didn’t know.

The wind was gentler on the sand. Merely a sea-swept breeze.

The ocean hushed the world with the great swoosh of its waves up the shore. He could focus here.

The initial adrenaline that sent him charging from the house was bleeding from his body, leaving Yuuri cold. He wrapped his arms around his torso and started walking along the shoreline at a quick pace, determined to keep warm. For he could not turn back yet.

The morning sun cast shaded glow from behind a sky full of clouds directly above. The sea met the skyline with dark blue pallor against slate.

He walked on, slippers making for poor sand shoes.  

And he thought, skipping between wave edges as they swept up the sloping shore.

Yuuri returned to the house not more than an hour later. The cold had long seeped deep into his bones; he thought first of standing against the fireplace until at least the very edges of his skin were thawed, but he heated water for a bath, instead.

And even after washing himself in steaming water, he felt ice still thick inside him. Yuuri drew in a deep breath and focused on the feeling of being alive, and thus the sensation of his own small amounts of body heat.

Finally dressed in clothes for the day, he made his way from the house and up the stairs of the lighthouse. He clogged his boots against the bottom level to shake mud and wet off them. The sound reverberated through the entire column, ricocheting against the walls until it reached the top. It was so, so empty.

Yuuri reached for the oil-filled canisters he kept near the door. He paused a moment, realizing the imbalance between the two separate sections of dusty cans. He only had one filled one left; the other empty ones he set off to the side. He was due for another delivery soon. Likely on the morrow.

He tried to put it to memory to expect the delivery boy.

With hands growing quickly chilled, he reluctantly reached for the handle before beginning the great ascent.

There was no other way to put it: that upheaval toward the sky, the step-by-step process that went muscle-achingly slow but suddenly saw its pursuer at the end of a great, reaching tunnel. Once it had exhilarated Yuuri. Once he had not taken the journey quite so often alone. Now the journey was dulled: a climb where he felt to be searching for an answer. But when he got to the top, he still had nothing.

Years had strengthened Yuuri’s legs, but there was still the itchy layer of sweat under his wintry clothes as he went. At the top, he set the canister down with a punctuating clink. Beyond the protective glass surrounding the lamp was a perimitering balcony, and Yuuri stepped onto it to revel in the wind that swept wild and untamed.

The air was biting and soon his eyes were watering, but the crispness of it all brightened his mind enough. After a moment’s pause to reflect upon nothing in particular, which was the beauty of it all, he set to work replenishing oil and dusting lenses.

With mind reeled in from the wind that threatened to carry sense away, Yuuri tried avidly not to think of certain things.

What Yuuri did not think about: the increasing coldness to the air, the sensation of not being alone, yet being so clearly by oneself, like reflections across ice.

 

~

 

Yuuri’s often dreamt of Viktor. Those dreams were nostalgic and brought the tears to his sleeping eyes; often he woke silently and stilly, the pillow wet against his cheeks.

Tonight was different.

Yuuri saw his hands stretched before him to work the lighthouse lamp, but whatever he was actually doing wasn’t apparent. His hands blurred in and out of focus; he thought he might be repairing a part come loose, for he had the sense that he was touching cold metal, but he could not be sure.

“Yuuri, can you hear me?” said Viktor’s voice. Yuuri was not too alarmed by this, for by the nonsensical way he worked, he already had the inklings that this was some sleeping sight.

He didn’t think he voiced his answer, but he must have, because the voice continued.

“Are you ignoring me?”

Yuuri stopped the motion of his hands. The question pulled at strings that tied him to awakeness; he couldn’t pinpoint what emotions those strings attached to, but it tightened his chest around the ice already there. Ice creaked and groaned, threatening to capsize him.

“Calm down, Yuuri. It’s okay, it’s just me. Stay with me.”

The familiar words to ward off his fears knocked into him like a warm gust, the rare kind that came with only the best summer days.

With what must have been a blink, the scene morphed into the beach at the bottom of the cliff.

There he was. Maybe visually he was distorted, an image put together from a memory, but Yuuri’s heart beat through the cavern of ice it was encased within, his blood burned. The love he felt at seeing him, even if just mind and memory, built the rest of the image. He could close his eyes and Viktor would still be there, burned through and forever there because he never really left. Ghostly vestiges or not, he forever haunted the corners of vision and mind.

In the deep lull of sleep like the rocking of a ship, Yuuri could finally think that.

Viktor reached out a hand and suddenly, though he had felt still meters away, his hand was on Yuuri’s shoulder.

“How are you?”

Yuuri laughed, manic and echoing within the walls of the dreamworld. What did Viktor think? “Come back, please. I need you here.”

“But I’m here.”

Yuuri shook his head. “You are not.”

Viktor’s eyes sought between Yuuri’s own, an intimate detail Yuuri was surprised to catch; those eyes looked sadly beautiful, longing for some understanding Yuuri knew not of. Yuuri reached up and touched the side of Viktor’s face, caressed his cheek - he gasped. The sensation felt so real, and suddenly he was vulnerable beneath the sky, against the person he loved most. He could break so easily - was broken, had been broken, would break again and again because like always, this moment would be ripped from him.

“Yuuri,” Viktor whispered. It sounded like he meant to simply bask in the sound of Yuuri’s name, and Yuuri wanted nothing but to bask in the sound of Viktor saying his name. However he continued: “How long has it been?”

Yuuri thought he did not know what Viktor was asking of, yet he answered without thinking, “Nine months now. Four overdue.”

“Oh.”

The word blew out of Viktor with a gust of shivery wind. Yuuri’s skin tightened and he moved closer to Viktor, but he’d stiffened. The waves slapped at the shore, growing louder somehow.

“What’s wrong, Viktor?”

“It feels like it’s only been hours.”

The words were odd on Yuuri’s ears and so he tried to push them away. “Hold me, while there’s still time.”

But Viktor didn’t move, and Yuuri looked up to see him staring out to sea. The wind danced the strands of his hair among themselves. The sight unsettled Yuuri; this, too, was different. In dreams Viktor always held him like he had always done, loved him as though he’d never left.

“I’ve been lost among the waves for so long.”

“But you’re here now,” Yuuri said. His voice sounded pleading.

“That’s right… Yuuri, I remember. I saw the light of our lighthouse. I followed it here.”

“Then come to me, please.”

“I have, Yuuri. Don’t you understand?” Viktor turned to stare down into Yuuri’s eyes now, and it was his turn to beg. “You understand, don’t you?” The sound of the waves grew louder, leaking into Yuuri’s ears with cold shrill cries.

Yuuri shook his head. “I’m waiting for you to come home, Viktor.”

“Yuuri, you know what this is. Please don’t push me away. I can help you. You can help me.”

“You’re not making any sense!” Yuuri cried. The sea was seeping deep into him now. Yuuri threw his hands to cover his ears and knocked Viktor’s hands away, having forgotten their grip on his shouldered. The place they’d rested scorched like frostbite, and Yuuri yelled again, “Just come home!” as he shook his head. His hands were useless barriers against the sea, and quickly Yuuri was aware that no longer did he stand upon the sand, but he was submerged in the water. Thick darkness rushed around him, leaving him visionless and soundless - he struggled, flailed against the current, but it had grasped him firmly. The sea swept him from the shore with her great maw.

Yuuri thought he could feel Viktor still centimeters in front of him, but he could not be sure. For he was drowning.

In what he thought was the last dredges of consciousness, he accepted the truth: he would drown here at sea, and he could not entirely be saddened, for at least his grave would be with his husband.

Yuuri, no! A panicked voice slashed through the murk.

Yuuri barreled forward; he breathed heavily, but air he did breathe. He stared at the far wall of his room, lit only by its pale color and the faint light from the moon outside the window. The clouds must have reduced to wisps.

Cold sweat drenched him.

At first he recalled the waves and the crushing pressure of cold clogging his ears and pouring into his mouth and nose, but the memories weren’t memories to recall at all, more phantom sensations of too vivid a nightmare. But slowly all those imaginings pulled away from him until at last he was left with only one feeling.

He felt it at the base of his spine. All his muscles were tensed and burning. He swallowed hard with eyes still locked onto the far white wall. And then Yuuri knew that he was afraid.

His dream replayed in his mind and he was not entirely sure all parts were fiction - for the images didn’t frost over until they were incomprehensible, as dreams often did. Part of Yuuri believed if he were to walk down to the beach and search the sand, he’d find footprints aligning with where he’d been.

The room echoed no sound save for the all-encompassing silence, and gradually the fear left Yuuri as did that initial sensation of drowning, until he could move and breathe easily. He was left with a remnant eeriness puddled in his chest, cool and warning, but it was manageable.

The curtains across his window were drawn apart slightly to let in a small sliver of light, the same beam that allowed the minimal sight. He pondered a moment at the time of the night but could not imagine leaving his bed to gather the truth from the moon or draw the curtains enough to allow for seeing the clock on the dresser. However, the world smelled like deep night and so he figured it must be.

As his eyes adjusted more to the small light, Yuuri could at least see the outlines of the room and the dark shapes of furniture and clothes strew across the floor. Everything was familiar - and he was alone.

Yuuri sunk low into the covers. He did not feel tired, though he knew that was a trick of his mind. His dream still dwelt within him, begging to resurface, but he suppressed it and tried his best to not think upon what had occurred within the limitless walls of sleep.

He laid there, breathing lowly so that the world would not hear him and know of his presence and send strange haunts his way. He did this until a dark cloud covered the moon, and so shrouded the cliff in darkness; when it blew past and the moon laid a sheen of light across the land and sea again, Yuuri was asleep.

 

~

 

Yuuri tried to claim normalcy again, but when a knock on the door sent him jolting from his chair at breakfast, he knew he was still shaken from the previous night.

He stood frozen, wondering if Phichit were attempting another visit.

The knock sounded again, rough and impatient, recognizable, and Yuuri remembered he was expecting an oil delivery for the coming month.

On the other side of the door waited Yuri Plisetsky, the town’s delivery boy. He was bundled high in coats and scarves of mismatching fabrics, a sight that made Yuuri chuckle as he greeted, “Good morning, Yuri.”

Yuri sniffled against the cold that bit his nose red and grimaced. “I thought maybe you weren’t home. I would have been angry to drag these up the cliff for you to not even be here.” He gestured to a rusted wagon filled with neat stacks of oil cans.

“I’m always home,” Yuuri said lightly, though the boy’s eyes narrowed at the remark.

“That’s why Yakov said it wouldn’t matter when I brought these out.”

Yuuri didn’t respond to that, but dug into the pocket of his coat for his money pouch. He retrieved the usual amount of coins, plus a little extra, as he always did when Yuri delivered the oil. Yuri’s hand, covered by an old woolen glove, was already outstretched and waiting, and Yuuri dropped the coins.

Yuri looked a moment upon them, then counted them clumsily with his other gloved hand. His cheeks tinged pinker than the cold already made them, and he looked up at Yuri under delicate lashes.

“I could wheel these to the lighthouse for you, since I need to get the empty cans anyway.”

“A moment then, let me join you.” Yuuri reached behind him and pulled his scarf from the coat rack and wrapped it snug around his neck. Pulling his coat closed, he stepped outside and shut the door.

Yuri nodded stiffly and turned the wagon around to wheel to the lighthouse. He dragged it slowly, for it bumbled in an awkward fashion along the craggy clifftop ground. The wheels needed oil of their own, for they whined a metallic screech in a steady rhythm. The cold blew sharp, and Yuri buried his face into his colorful scarves more. Townsfolk weren’t accustomed to the way the wind slashed across bare skin up here.

Yuuri thought of Yuri’s words and their implications; so the townspeople noticed Yuuri’s absence. They thought him a hermit, possibly a frightening creature that burrowed in its cave high upon the cliff. Suddenly the height of the cliff seemed not one that simply stood above the town, but above the clouds; it distanced him from everyone by such sheer volumes that traveling up the cliffside was like stumbling into new whole new regions.

And worse - they all likely thought he was mad.

He recognized it in the pitying stare that Phichit looked upon him with, or even little Yuri, with his head likely full of rumors and schoolyard tales.

The notion filled him a rage that was instantly dulled by sadness; he cast a look toward the sea and thought if he were not still alone, it would not be this way. The ice in his chest hardened, encased itself closer to his heart that struggled to find ways to send his blood through the glacial scape.

And yet words chimed in his ears, deep down like tickling puffs of air: _maybe I’m not alone_.

“Mr. Katsuki?” Yuri asked, eyes wide and careful, his stance at a distance from Yuuri’s own.

Yuuri pursed his lips tightly and managed to still form a smile. He stepped forward to open the lighthouse door.

Yuri looked about to step back from him, but once the door was open, he wheeled the oil cans inside. The cries of protest the wheels shouted soared straight to the top. Yuri’s head bent back fast to stare upward as if he could catch sight of the sound bouncing around high, high above.

Yuuri began unloading the full cans of oil as the boy stared up. While he was setting the empty cans onto the wagon, the metallic clangs rattling unceasingly throughout the tunnel above, Yuri asked, “Mr. Katsuki, aren’t you alone out here?”

Yuuri paused, confused at Yuri’s wording. He looked up to where Yuri still stared intently but he saw nothing save for the same things. “Do you mean lonely?”

Yuri scrutinized the space above for one last hardened moment, searching for nothing that could be found as there was nothing there, and brought his sight level again. “I guess so.”

“I like being alone,” Yuuri lied. He saw in the boy’s eyes that he did not believe him, because certainly a child least of anyone would ever believe loneliness to be good, but he said nothing more. In silence they finished swapping the cans until Yuuri waved him good-bye and bid him well for another month. He watched as Yuri led the squeaking wagon down the carved path in the cliff, and then he stood some more until the calling wind and shushing sea covered even the wagon’s cries.

 

~

 

Yuuri was in the lighthouse working after midday. He’d cleaned his house until the thoughts sloshing back and forth seemed to have at last splashed out, and his next distraction was an inspection of the lamp and lenses and all their working parts. His toolbox, which he presumed he would not need but carried with him anyway, sat on a stool some couple meters from him. The stool had been meant for him to sit, but he found himself kneeling before the lamp and burner instead.

With a crash that knocked Yuuri back, the stool fell onto its side along with the case of tools. Screwdrivers and wrenches scattered with a deafening clatter, then stilled. Yuuri stared, heart thumping from the fright. He wondered if the wind had found a way in past the glass walls, though he hadn’t felt even a breeze.

One of the wrenches twitched; Yuuri blinked against the sight, blank and confused. He thought perhaps the lighthouse were about to tumble down and he hadn’t registered the foundation quaking.

Then the wrench shot forward with a metallic scrape against the floor. The sound was akin to a scream and it curdled Yuuri’s blood; his breath froze amongst the ice building in his throat.

The wrench came to a pointed stop at his feet sprawled before him.

Yuuri couldn’t move. So he stared, stared at the wrench, and despite the horror shooting up and down his spine like firecrackers, he couldn’t move.

The earth had stopped spinning. For a disorientingly clear moment, there was nothing. Just Yuuri and the scattered tools, all of them paused with time, high above the rest of the world. Unreachable.

Then time dropped back down. The stool lifted and spluttered a moment midair before soaring into the glass wall and clattering back to the ground.

Yuuri launched to his feet, scrambling at first, but then he was tearing down the steps of the lighthouse. There was no time for concern over tumbling down the stairs or tripping over the stair rails and falling down the center of the lighthouse. The pace at which he could go was painfully slow, and he ran with the feeling of a great wave just at his back, wanting to crash and pull him down.

Outside he took not even a moment to catch his breath and slammed open the door to the house.

With all the dread of pending madness threatening to drop like icicles above him, he flung the door shut and yelled into the house, “Viktor!”

The hall splayed before him, beckoning him deeper into his own home. He turned right into the kitchen, yelling Viktor’s name again, his voice high and cracking. The wide room, empty of life, watched him.

Yuuri gripped his hair, storming into the center of the room. “I know you’re here!” His feet took him into his own room where he continued calling for Viktor; he ripped open the curtains of his window, fistfuls of fabric slamming into the sides of the sill. He stared hard at the view of the sea, half-expecting to see Viktor peeking through the whitecaps and grinning at him. Yuuri’s heart stung.

“Talk to me!”

He slammed a hand against the window and the glass vibrated under the force.

Into the kitchen again, Yuuri knocked a chair over, mimicking the recklessness he’d been shown over the past days. “Please!” His voice wavered and it frightened him to hear it weaken. Tears bit at his eyes, hot liquid somehow being conjured from the whelms of ice he held around his heart.

He leaned over the table and put his head in his hands in time to catch the first flow of tears. “Viktor,” he whispered again. His shoulders trembled as a sob wrenched from him, and he cried for his lost husband - because he had thought he’d returned. But returned not from sea, but from the dead, and thus he’d accepted that he would never truly return. Just as he had in his dream he so fervently wanted to forget. And now he felt haunted and crazy and deluded and so, so alone, and so he cried.

But then an idea emerged.

Breath caught in manic hope, he lifted his head to stare at the window above the stove.

“Wait,” he breathed and stood upright. Exhaustion was clamping down on his muscles, but he stumbled forward to start the gas on the stove. He opened a cabinet and shuffled for a pot, knocking aside other dishes as he did, but he cared not, and so he withdrew a pot and filled it with water.

Yuuri set it on the burner and waited - each second that passed felt like ten minutes, and Yuuri feared the increasing cold that set in as the sun went down would somehow prevent the water from boiling. But before the water even bubbled, steam was steadily rising. Yuuri immediately backed away as if leaving room for the steam to do its work. And, he supposed with rising anxiety, he wanted to be out of the way of any… person.

At first the set of letters that appeared in the fog felt like a punch in the stomach, but he recognized them from before: Are You Ignoring Me

They were imprinted like fingerprints across the pane, and even though he was here for something new, the sight reaffirmed his sanity.

“I’m not ignoring you anymore,” he whispered.

As if in response to the words, something new began to be drawn on the window. Yuuri held his breath and waited, watching, eyes wide and watering.

_Close Your Eyes_

Something fell into place within Yuuri. A sliver of truth, a piece of a puzzle, it clicked in place and the atmosphere felt calmer, the storm overhead passing instead of cascading down in violent sheets of rain and thunder.  

Yuuri closed his eyes.

“Yuuri.”

His shoulders tensed. Tears bled from underneath his lids, but he willed his eyes to stay shut. The voice as clear as light, true as his own fluttering heartbeat, and it came from behind him.

“Viktor.”

“You can hear me?”

“Yes.” Yuuri wanted to say more, ask more, but his throat was stretched wide and hurt from the awe he was struck by. Moments passed slowly. If he could only see, or feel -

Arms came around him and held him in an embrace against the familiar pressure of a chest. It was cold, but still Yuuri fell into it, willing to give all the warmth in his body away for these moments gifted to him.

“I’m so sorry, I haven’t meant to scare you these past few days. But I haven’t known how to contact you much, but it seems that this works, for now.”

“You are dead, aren’t you?” Yuuri asked.

At first there was silence, and if it were not for the cold touch of Viktor, Yuuri would have thought he was gone. But he finally spoke again: “I am.”

“Oh, God, Viktor. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Tears streamed faster, hot and running. They dripped from his chin and Yuuri wryly wondered if Viktor could feel them fall against phantom skin.

“Shh, don’t be, Yuuri, don’t be. I love you. I’m here now. I found you.” Viktor’s voice was as confident and bright as the day he’d left with the promise to return before Yuuri could miss him. But there was something else there, too - something scared. Yuuri wanted to ask Viktor so many things.

But all Yuuri said for now was, “I love you, too,” for he was tired and felt he’d sway on his feet if not for Viktor’s hold, though he wasn’t sure it was actually keeping him upright.

“I’m taking too much of your energy,” Viktor said. “You have to open your eyes, Yuuri. But I’ll still be here.”

Viktor let go, and Yuuri immediately whirled around with eyes still closed and exclaimed, “Wait!” but he swayed, head fatigued and swirling with colors. He stumbled and was forced to open his eyes and catch himself on the kitchen table.

He breathed heavily, staring at the splintery wood of the old thing, face still wet with fresh tears. “Viktor,” he said again and he felt that Viktor was there. Though he could not see or hear him, he was there. As ever present as the sea.

Yuuri had been right: he guided Viktor home. And now he was not alone.

The sound of sizzling disrupted his thoughts; the pot was boiling over, and Yuuri hurried to remove it from the burner and shut off the gas. He looked at the window, the words already fading away with the steam, and now, below the other two lines of written words, a heart was drawn.

Yuuri smiled, though it was weak to match his fatigue. The sun was only halfway down the sky, but he felt the need to crawl into bed; Yuuri did so, and at least his heart - for the first time in months - wasn’t quite so heavy.

 

~

 

With renewed energy, Yuuri’s eyes flashed open from a dreamless sleep. He thought perhaps he would wake early since he'd gone to bed far before bedtime, but the sun streamed in steadily through the curtains.

The sun!

Truly this was the start of better times.

Yuuri felt a warm glimmer crack through the glacier inside him; he smiled to the ceiling, sighing, then rolled out of bed and quickly bathed and dressed.

"Viktor," he said to the bedroom as he did so. "I don't know what to make of this new situation, but I cannot wait to speak to you again. I know that things aren't the same but - this can work, right?"

He paused to stare at himself in the mirror. His smile faltered upon doing so: his heart was ruffled, unbrushed like a wild man's. He grabbed a comb and did his best to tame it, but there was nothing to be done about the darkness under his eyes or the sallow paleness of his cheeks. He would have thought the night of sleep would do him well, but perhaps a single night couldn't undo months of grief and restless living.

Yuuri wandered into the kitchen to make his morning tea; his stomach lurched at the notion of when Viktor would communicate with him again. Should he just close his eyes now and ask him to come? Or would he write him messages in the window, or perhaps he would wait for inscribing something into the sand? Or another visit in sleep?

And if Yuuri could only see him, too...

But that was too much to ask for so soon, surely; Viktor was still understanding his own abilities.

Yuuri still hurt that Viktor was gone from this plane. Though through his ever-present denial, he'd always known, after that first couples weeks had passed him by with nothing to show from the sea. He’d known.

But Yuuri knew that his own time here was temporary, and if Viktor could just wait for him to join....

"I cannot wait," Yuuri said before his water had even begun to warm. He closed his eyes and hoped, prayed, and -

"Oh, Yuuri." A hold of his hand.

Yuuri smiled and felt his eyes burn again. The coldness that gusted gently over him chilled his skin; but it was familiar for it signified victor’s presence, and Yuuri embraced it.

"Viktor," he whispered.

 

~

 

_Are You Tired_

The words wrote themselves smoothly into the sand.

“Yes,” Yuuri whispered. Even as he spoke, his eyes were drifting closed. He sat on the beach with knees to his chest and arms wrapped around them. His chin rested between the groove of his knees.

The sun laid warmth across his exposed neck until the clouds passed over again.

“But I want to stay,” he continued.

There wasn’t an immediate response, which was fine.

Yuuri let the sound of the sea pull him from the shore where he drifted among waves, gentle at last after days of rough waters and angry currents. Though the water was still cold he could imagine it was warm each time the sun lent her heat. And slowly, slowly… like a falling feather, Yuuri cascaded off to sleep.

In his sleep there were no words but he was on the beach still, and Viktor sat beside him. They held hands half-buried in the sand and together they watched the sea.

Yuuri’s eyes opened slowly; the sun was nearly gone out of the sky. Carved into the sand in lovely, sloping letters, was

_I Love You_

_Rest Now_

The night was much colder than the day, and the presence of a ghost much colder than one without; Yuuri shuddered surrounded by it all, but he smiled still.  

 

~

 

The days passed with Yuuri dancing between awake and dreaming. When he was awake, he was thinking about dreaming. And dreaming meant following Viktor’s written words throughout the house, closing his eyes and speaking to him, or being lulled into a sleep by the exhausted state his endeavors always left him in, where sometimes Viktor would also be waiting for him.

Yuuri was full of love again, but Viktor’s presence always left him cold and shivering, the glacier in his chest still solid and weighing him into the ground. For Viktor was still dead.

One day Yuuri walked upon the beach, for the sun had shown itself, but by the time he reached the sand it had already retreated back into dark storm clouds unfurling. Still Yuuri walked next to the sea, because his ever-weakening strength could use the movement. But at some point he tired and sat down. He rested his eyes with shut lids and immediately Viktor was there.

"You’re tired," he said.

"And so?"

"Yuuri, you know that I can't stay here forever."

The glacier pressed against Yuuri’s ribcage. "Why not?"

"Because I’m draining you. This isn't... right."

Yuuri’s fists clenched sand. "Please don't go."

"I can't," Viktor said, and his tone was so hollow it almost fluttered away on sea breeze. He continued, "I think you need to move on. And I can't move on until you do."

Yuuri was quiet long enough for a wave to crash forward and work its way up the shore. It sounded close, and he expected to feed water rush around him, drenching his clothes and filling his shoes, but it didn't reach him.

Yuuri stated, "All I want from life is to have you with me again."

"Then want more."

"Viktor, don't you understand? There’s nothing but you now."

"Yuuri..." Viktor said, but his voice was fading. Or Yuuri was. He was tired and felt to be falling, gently, down, down.... "Go home, Yuuri, you need to rest."

Yuuri didn't know how he made it into his bed, but his next wink of consciousness showed him to be there. And then he slept for many, many hours. Dreamless again, though he would have much preferred the presence of his Viktor.

 

~

 

Yuuri was groggy and all-too-aware of the passage of time when he awoke. He did not know what day it was, and in fact had no clue when he’d last done routine maintenance on the lighthouse.

But he found he could not move from his bed. He was hot beneath his blankets, but he shivered and knew he must have a fever. Lighthouses could wait; soon he slept again.

This time Viktor was there.

They stood not on the beach, but sat at their kitchen table. Viktor was watching Yuuri with sad gleams in his eyes. Yuuri wanted to cast them away, because together they were not meant to be sad.

The edges of his dream were splattered in hues of colors morphing between other shades, an effect of his temperature. He ignored it and focused on Viktor.

Viktor said, “You are sick now.”

“I'm resting. It's okay.”

Viktor shook his head, and with elegant lashes, stared down at the table and frowned. “As long as I'm communicating with you, you will not be at rest. And so neither shall I.”

Yuuri scowled toward the window. It pulsed in and out of focus. “You always speak like this now. Aren't you happy?”

“Yuuri, I am so happy to have had the chance to tell you I love you again, and see you one last time, but I need to go. And you need to let me go.”

Yuuri shook his head. “I can't. I can't! Why can't you stay? Do you not want to?”

Viktor leaned forward and held out his hands. Yuuri gave him his own to clasp, though Yuuri looked pointedly away, childlike and pouting.

“I wish I could be with you truly,” he said. “But we don't exist on the same plane anymore. This is unsustainable.”

 

~

 

"Can you hear the music?" Yuuri asked.

He was playing a record of a song from long ago. He hadn't listened to it since Viktor had set sail, for the melody, despite how lovely and serene, pained him. It was a song they'd danced to at their wedding, and many times after.

But now he played it.

The music filled the living room, and at first he felt alone. But a chill pressed against his neck and moved down his shoulders and Yuuri knew he was not.

Yuuri closed his eyes and fell back into the cold - just for a moment. The ice spread further inside him as he dipped into the frigid space, but then he heard him: "Our song. Open your eyes and save your energy, Yuuri."

"Dance with me."

"I still can."

Yuuri opened his eyes reluctantly, but some warmth returned to his veins, enough so that he could move. Still the cold swept around him; however he swept with it, and as the music swelled into romantic swoops, Yuuri was carried with both the sound and the presence, and he danced. _They_ danced. Yuuri stole glimpses with closed eyes every so often - as sweet and innocent as sharing quick kisses under the stars. He laughed as the music reached its peak, feeling ridiculous but so alive, high on the tingling in his fingertips as they froze from holding dead hands.

When the song ended and the dance was done, Yuuri fell asleep on the couch.

He awoke with a blanket over him.

 

~

 

"Are you ready yet?" Viktor asked in his dream.

"Please not again," Yuuri begged. He was so tired of hearing about moving on.

"Okay then," Viktor sighed. A gust of arctic wind was summoned by his breath, and Yuuri nearly woke with the blast of blueish air. "Not yet."

 

~

 

Someone knocked.

Yuuri’s head jerked up from where he nodded off over morning tea. "Viktor?" he looked around himself.

The knock sounded again, louder this time. It was coming from the front door. "Yuuri!"

It was Phichit.

Yuuri scrambled from his seat, knees weak and sleepy, but he blinked hard and forced his mind alive.

"Coming!" he called with sleep-thick voice.

When Yuuri opened the door, Phichit gasped. "Yuuri, thank god." He stared at Yuuri with wide and worried eyes that panned over him as if expecting to see Yuuri hurt or missing a limb, but when he saw nothing, he continued, "What - where have you been?"

"Nowhere? Or well, here." Yuuri glanced over his shoulder; of course nothing and no one was there, but he felt the compulsion to check anyhow. "Come in. It's cold outside."

Phichit narrowed his eyes at that remark, but followed Yuuri into the house. They sat at the kitchen table, Phichit still somehow radiating warmth through the bleak wintry air, though he was not his typical happy self.

"Yuuri, you know the light is out?"

Yuuri pursed his lips and looked to the table surface. He couldn't say he knew already, though he had his suspicions. He didn't even know what day it was.

"Yuuri?"

"I was going to turn it on after breakfast," Yuuri lied fast. He winced. Phichit would know. He didn't ever just let it stay off when it went out. That glacier pressed further against his chest, his ribcage swelling until his bones creaked. It hurt.

"I’m worried, Yuuri. The last time that happened, you were -"

"Don’t!" he gasped, felt his chest about to burst. It hurt so _much_.

Phichit shook his head fervently. "I don't want to remind you of the past, but I’m just worried about you. Really."

"You don't need to be though," Yuuri said, and despite the manic ambiance he knew the smile he gave Phichit was filled with, he couldn't help but believe his own words. He was happier now, wasn't he?

"But the light-"

"Was a mistake. I’m fixing it now." He stood up fast and Phichit jerked back, startled. "Want to come?"

The room grew slightly colder. Yuuri wondered if Viktor wanted to tell him something; the idea made him want to retract his invitation to Phichit, even if it had only been for show to begin with.

"That’s okay," Phichit answered, and Yuuri held back his relieved sigh. "You know how I don't care for heights. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. And - you really are?"

"I promise." The coldness swelled, both inside of him and out.

Phichit glanced past Yuuri, and the gesture at first seemed casual, but his eyes focused onto something. His brows began to crease, but Phichit caught himself, expression freezing over like the rest of the world. Yuuri wanted to turn and see what caught his eye, his heart already hammering at the notion he'd caught sight of Viktor. But not even Yuuri could see Viktor with open eyes in the light of day.

Regathering his bearings, Phichit looked back to Yuuri and said, "Well I’m glad then." He stood to leave, and Yuuri walked him to the door. Before letting it shut him out, Phichit reminded Yuuri once again, "Remember, if there's ever anything you need..."

"Thanks, Phichit." Yuuri tried his best to crack a warm smile, hoped the attempted warmth could breach the bitter air. Maybe it did, because Phichit glowed back, easily and carefree once again. But then he was gone.

Yuuri returned to the kitchen, eager to feel what Viktor was about.

But he halted. He’d left the water simmering quietly over the oven. Steam rose lazily, slowly, but was enough to illuminate the messages on the window from days past. Faded but there and true.

Perhaps that was what Phichit had seen - Yuuri couldn't be panicked about that though, for Phichit would have no clue who'd written them. So he pushed worries from his mind, sat back in front of his tea mug, and closed his eyes.

Like plunging into icy waters, Viktor was present all around him again. And he spoke fast: "Phichit wants to help you. Don’t push him away."

"I’m fine," Yuuri defended. "Hold me Viktor. I miss you."

"What about turning on the light?" Viktor asked, though cold arms wrapped around Yuuri.

"I will soon, I swear."

 

~

 

Yuuri dreamed a lovely dream of dancing on the lighthouse balcony with Viktor: two silhouettes moving against the bright light.

Yuuri let Viktor’s eyes pull him in like siren songs, dragging him deeper into the place Viktor resided in. Viktor seemed happy to pull Yuuri down; and though part of Yuuri wondered if Viktor knew just how deep this other world went, he wasn't sure he cared. Down, deeper, with each twirl against the light, the seams of the dream were threatening to unravel and break like waves onto the waking world, trapping everything inside of Yuuri’s sleep.

And just like that, the light went out, and everything fell into darkness. Viktor shuddered in Yuuri’s arms and Yuuri thought perhaps this is how the bottom of the ocean feels. Crisp and open and black black black. He pressed Viktor to him to remind him they weren't there in that unfeeling hell, but Viktor was suddenly faraway. "I remember," he said. Yuuri felt his heart stop at the words, the thousand possible meanings tumbling to the invisible balcony floor. The words skittered about their feet, aimless and unwanted like mice and Yuuri’s chest grew even heavier.

"What?" he choked, teeth biting lip.

"That night. We couldn't see her light, Yuuri." The disembodiment of Viktor’s voice by the dark was much stranger than the delicate wavelength it traveled upon in the waking world. Yuuri suddenly felt scared. And then the words processed through his mind; he couldn't move.

"Were our bearings off? Were we farther than we thought?"

Yuuri couldn't speak. He listened for the ocean waves far, far below to calm him, but there was nothing. Just blackness and the cold caress of his dead husband's arms. The only breathing was his own, of course, for only he needed air.

"Yuuri?" Viktor asked.

Yuuri woke up.

It was midday, of another day, though he didn't really know when.

After that night, Yuuri feared Viktor would bring up their last topic again. But though he didn't, Yuuri heard the question deep within Viktor’s tone during waking hours; and asleep, he saw Viktor’s eyes search his own for an answer. Sometimes Yuuri was almost sure Viktor knew, but Viktor still stayed - and they made Yuuri think he mustn't.

They continued on.

 

~

 

Yuuri was somewhere stuck in a Viktorless sleep when hands gripped his shoulders. Their warmth alarmed him and pulled him into wakefulness; there Phichit was, staring down at Yuuri with watering eyes.

"Yuuri! Oh my gosh, finally," Phichit gasped, collapsing to his knees on the floor next to the bed.

Yuuri blinked wearily, disoriented and momentarily unsure of where he was. "Ph-phichit? What’s going on?" he fought back a yawn, sitting up. Cold morning light glimpsed through the curtains.

Phichit watched him, mouth dropped open in disbelief. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

Phichit shook his head. "Yuuri, what day is it?"

Yuuri laughed, forced and harsh. "That’s dumb, Phichit. What’s going on?"

Phichit rose to his feet, his demeanor suddenly defiant and stern. "What day."

At first Yuuri thought he could argue against the need to answer, or deflect whatever accusations Phichit was preparing to toss him, but his exhaustion weighed his will like chains.

"I don't know," he admitted with eyes cast to the wall.

"The light went out yesterday," Phichit started. "And I left you alone, not wanting to be oppressive. But then it was still out today. And you didn't answer your door but it was unlocked. I’ve been trying to wake you for several minutes."

There were no words to be said and so Yuuri said none. He merely digested what Phichit was telling him with a dull expression.

"And Yuuri? You kept saying Viktor’s name. Just now."

No one had spoken Viktor’s name to Yuuri for so long, and hearing it was like having an icicle stabbed through his chest. Of course it only lodged into the glacier inside him and was trapped with all his other sins.

"What’s going on?"

For some reason that question made Yuuri want to laugh. Perhaps if he just told Phichit everything, Phichit would declare him insane and leave him for the icy death coming his way. Phichit deserved a better friend than someone like Yuuri anyway.

Someone who would never, ever let the light go out.

"Please talk to me, Yuuri."

Yuuri took a deep breath, one that lifted his shoulders and swelled his chest, and for that moment he felt there was enough strength left inside him for this tale. He could tell Phichit everything, and so when he finally was dragged into the sea, at least someone would know.

And so he spoke, he let the words wash out of him, into the room and throughout the whole house; Phichit sat at the edge of Yuuri’s bed as the waters rose. He listened, attentive and without a glimmer of astonishment or disbelief, and Yuuri wondered why the bed didn't sink, but soon understood it was Phichit who kept him afloat for one last time.

At least he had this.

 

* * *

 

 

“And so that brings us here,” Phichit said alast. Though his light mood was faint now; he stared toward the cliff raised between the town and the sea, its great lighthouse atop it sending a beam forthright over the water. Strong and amazing, like Yuuri, to endure so much.

Mr. Giacometti did not speak; he joined in Phichit’s gaze, and together they wondered of ghosts and hauntings and dead sailors and poor lighthouse keepers with nothing but the company of dead husbands.

And then he said, “A fine tale, lad. But more grim than I hoped.”

With aching heart bleeding unto every movement he made, he smiled weakly, nodded absently. “Yes, a tale.” He thought a moment maybe Chris didn’t believe that it was true. He himself often wondered, after all.

But then Chris asked, “When was this? Recently?”

“A few days ago.”

“And do you truly believe him?”

Phichit smiled with thoughtful warmth. “Well, I did see those messages scrawled into the window before he ever told me about them. And see, here’s the other thing.”

Chris leaned forward in his chair, and Phichit wryly felt the elation of captivating an audience. So odd, for this moment. “Yuri, that oil delivery boy. I talked to him after speaking to Yuuri.”

Head tilted, Chris seemed to be thinking, sifting back through the waves of the story, each swell and crash, to remember the boy.

“He told me he saw someone in the lighthouse that day. Just for a moment.”

Chris sat back. “Oh. Oh, my god.”

Silence stuck between them for a minute as they both thought over the implications of this. The first time, for Chris. The millionth time, for Phichit.

The door to the cafe blew open then; a gust of howling wind wrestled into the place, tossing jackets flaps into the air and begrudging customers their warmth and pleasure.

Yuri Plisetsky stood in the doorway.

“Mr. Chalunont!” he yelled. “It’s Katsuki! Something is wrong!”

Phichit was on his feet instantly. He was tugging his coat onto himself when Chris asked, “Should I come?”

“Your choice,” he said, and was disappointed to hear his voice waver. He swallowed hard. “But be warned: what you see might change you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Yuuri had stumbled out to the beach. The wind whipped cold and fierce against his skin; no longer could he tell what might be the touch of his husband or the slap of nature. It was all one and the same, and it all screamed punishment.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri managed to speak with broken voice. His knees hit the sand. The sound of crashing sea and wind filled his ears, so when he closed his eyes and Viktor spoke, the sound seemed to be inside his mind.

“Yuuri,” he whispered, soft and caring. He knelt before Yuuri, cupped his face in cold hands.

“It’s time for me to go. But you have to help me. It’s going to be okay.”

It was dreadfully true. Yuuri could feel the strength ebbing from him - and though once he may have wished to die, he felt this could not be how. This was not the way to go.

But to let Viktor go, he knew what needed to be done. Had known from the start. For a while he thought perhaps he could avoid it if Viktor would agree to stay here with him forever, but he felt Viktor was growing weaker, too; his time was growing short, and if he couldn’t move on soon, then Yuuri feared he would disappear forever. He deserved to have this chance.

Even if he might hate Yuuri.

“It was me,” Yuuri gasped. Tears drew from his eyes, down his cheeks; Viktor wiped them away and they froze against his skin as little droplets of ice. They stung as he spoke. “I forgot to check the light one night. Just once. But I think I might be the reason your crew couldn’t make it out of the storm. I think - I think I killed you, Viktor. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

Eyes closed and sounds whirling, the whole earth seemed to spin. The afraid part of Yuuri wanted to open his eyes and never shut them again, to stumble his way back to his house and lock himself inside until he died from sleeping through his hunger and thirst.

“You can hate me if you want, I deserve it.” Yuuri’s voice was thick and wavering. “I don’t deserve to live. You do.”

Viktor hadn’t let go of Yuuri, but he stilled. Yuuri braced himself.

“I don’t know if the night aligns with that night or not, or if we could have even seen it from where we were, or anything for sure,” Viktor said. The words did not comfort Yuuri.

Yuuri felt so sure it was his fault. He had woken the next day with icy dread in his heart like something terrible had happened. That was when the glacier began to first form. He’d stepped outside, the day particularly cold, looked up, and saw the light had died. And he’d known, he’d known and disgraced Viktor by living in denial for so long. And then to embrace him so fervently when he’d found his way home? It was despicable.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri choked again.

Lips gently placed themselves on each of his eyelids. The kisses fell like large snowflakes, and they coaxed his eyes open before he realized it.

Yuuri gasped. Viktor was kneeling before him, still holding Yuuri’s face between his palms. Beautiful and starry-eyed and shimmering as he’d been the day he left for sea. Yuuri could only gape.

“I forgive you.”

Heat flared through Yuuri’s chest. It almost hurt, but he felt a burst of strength from it. His heart beat, and though it had never stopped, it felt like it was starting up again.

“You… do? How?” Yuuri asked, tone empty save for his awe.

“I love you. And it doesn’t matter what happened out there. Whatever accidents occurred to bring me here weren’t all the fault of you, Yuuri. You cannot hold yourself responsible any longer. Because I don’t.”

Warmth crept into his limbs. He was thawing, as winter snow melts into springtime waters that rush through green valleys.

“Viktor,” Yuuri managed.

“I love you, Yuuri, and I will always.”

The new warmth flooding Yuuri burned against Viktor’s touch as if pushing him away. But Yuuri indulged himself one last time, falling into Viktor and pulling him close. Their bodies seared.

“I love you too, I love you too,” Yuuri cried, and his tears were of those springtime waters, rushing out from the glacier melting away with each burst of heat from his awakened heart. “Thank you, Viktor,” he whispered, barely audible, or perhaps it was only spoken in his thoughts. Either way, he knew Viktor heard.

“Are you ready now, Yuuri?” Viktor whispered back against his ear. It was a small, shivery brush of cold air.

Yuuri pulled back just enough that he could place his forehead against Viktor’s. He stared straight into his eyes, and they were there, not imagined or fleeting. He memorized them one last and final time. “I’m ready,” he said.

Viktor pressed forward into a kiss; their lips met, and as Yuuri closed his eyes to embrace the feel of Viktor’s lips one more time, the last of ice lodged inside of Yuuri was gone.

When he opened his eyes, so was Viktor.

The sun beamed down; the day was warm, and Yuuri sweat against the layers of clothes he adorned to combat the cold of before.

He sat back.

The sea was a rich warm blue, peaceful and serene; it glittered gold in places where the sun touched.

Fluffy, unmenacing white clouds drifted far overhead, pushed by a gentle breeze and the turn of the earth.

 

* * *

 

 

Phichit, Chris, and Yuri stood high above the beach on the cliff. They looked down upon Yuuri, for they had witnessed everything. Phichit felt tears sting his eyes; Yuri covered his mouth, still caught in shock; Chris now watched the sea. None could conjure what to say - perhaps because they knew they’d witnessed something beautiful. No story Phichit could ever think of would match this - unless, he thought, Yuuri let him rewrite this tale for others to see. For others to know, to experience.

He put the thought away for now - one day, when the time was right, he could ask.

Yuuri was coming their way now, making his way along the path up the cliff. His steps were lighter than they’d been in months.

When he caught sight of the group, his brows rose in surprise. He glanced toward his house where Yuri’s wagon lay abandoned from when he’d tried to deliver oil to Yuuri, only to discover Yuuri stumbling down the cliff path and seemingly unable to hear Yuri’s calls.

Though Yuuri didn’t know the whole of that story, he could likely surmise something similar, and he looked back at the group guiltily. “Hi, guys!” he greeted.

“H-hey Yuuri,” Phichit answered. “This is Chris, by the way. We just came to…”

“Hi Chris!” Yuuri said before Phichit needed to think of what to say. “I was just going to turn on the light. Do you guys want to help me? I’ve sort of neglected it the past few weeks and well,” he paused, face flushing a tad scarlet. “I could also use the company. It gets a little lonely out here.”

“Yes! I want to help,” piped Yuri, the first to recover. He charged forward to reclaim his abandoned wagon of oil.

“I’m down,” Chris said, voice surprisingly level.

Phichit smiled, nodded, and said, “Of course. I just won’t look down.”

Yuuri’s smiled was bright and like the sun - a quality he hadn’t exhibited in months, and fondness flooded Phichit at the sight. He was going to be okay now. Truly.

Before he and Chris made their way toward Yuuri, Chris whispered from behind, “My friend, I admit I now do believe in ghosts.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm super cold now  
> find me at [skateonme](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/)  
> <3


End file.
